The Patriot Post Digest 2-11-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-11-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
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Daily Digest

Feb. 11, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become honorable by being necessary.” —Nathan Hale, 1776

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

There’s Nothing Democratic About Democrat Primaries1

Hillary Clinton is winning handily against Bernie Sanders. Oh sure, the Democratic Socialist, with his message pledging a “political revolution” against Wall Street, tied in Iowa and cleaned up in the New Hampshire primary. But Clinton campaigned where it matters: to the Democrat Party’s superdelegates2 — lawmakers and key players in the party that can vote for whomever they want at the convention. Leaving New Hampshire, Sanders had the support of 42 delegates. Clinton? 394. The eventual Democrat candidate for president needs 2,382 delegates to win the party’s nomination.

For all their talk about dark money polluting the political system, Democrats sure do operate an unequal system. National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote3 that 10,000 young Democrat primary voters feelin' the Bern are equal to one superdelegate voting how they please, and those superdelegates are rallying to protect the establishment’s favorite politician in a pantsuit.

It’s false advertising to call the Democrat Party democratic. Why does the party even care about voter ID laws, or even participatory politics with a system tilted with superdelegates? So much for the principle of one person, one vote. The New Democrat Party is one where “Democrats” and Socialists is a distinction without a difference4.

Ferguson: Rally the Black Vote5

As the nation’s news junkies focused their attention on the New Hampshire primary returns6, the City Council of Ferguson, Missouri, took another twist related to the 2014 justified shooting death of Michael Brown. The six-member council voted unanimously to approve the Justice Department’s settlement to reform the city’s unjust policing practices — but “subject to certain conditions.” The DOJ responded to the city’s request by filing a lawsuit against Ferguson, just in time to agitate the black vote in the southern primaries.

The city council wants to amend the section of the 131-page consent decree that stipulates a pay increase for its police officers. If you recall, the city was balancing its budget through aggressive policing practices7 and a court system that collected fines from city residents hand over fist. With the reform already in place, Ferguson is running a $2.8 million deficit, and the DOJ’s plan would increase expenditures $3.7 million in the first year. Perhaps DOJ didn’t understand that unlike the federal government, local governments have to operate on a balanced budget.

“So just to make it clear,” Reason’s Scott Shackford explained8, “the city stands accused of having an abusive law enforcement agency that violates the rights of its citizenry in order to fund itself and its court employees, and the correction being imposed by the Department of Justice is to force the city to have to find sources of even more money to fork over to the very officers that have been abusing residents.” What’s Ferguson to do? Raise taxes on its poor residents?

Make no mistake: Timing is everything. The DOJ’s actions will benefit Hillary Clinton throughout the southern primaries, as blacks are reminded once again of injustice. Never mind that Ferguson (and every other city in which Black Lives Matter is fomenting discord) is run by Democrats. “Residents of Ferguson have suffered the deprivation of their constitutional rights — the rights guaranteed to all Americans — for decades,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “They have waited decades for justice. They should not be forced to wait any longer.” As long as Democrats run the show, they will have to wait longer.

Presstitutes and the Clintons Who Pimp Them9

For at least two prominent Beltway journalists, trading independence for fleeting scoops is all part of the media churn. A recent batch of emails released by the State Department thanks to a FOIA requests contained a 2009 exchange10 between former Atlantic contributing editor Marc Ambinder and Hillary Clinton mouthpiece Philippe Reines that demonstrated a clear example of transactional journalism. Clinton was a few months into her appointment as secretary of state when she gave a July 15 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations — a speech that The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple notes nobody remembers anymore11. Ambinder contacted the Clinton machine to ask for an advance transcript of the speech. In the reply email, Reines said he would hand over the transcript, provided Ambinder complied with three conditions.

1) You in your own voice describe them as “muscular”

2) You note that a look at the CFR seating plan shows that all the envoys — from Holbrooke to Mitchell to Ross — will be arrayed in front of her, which in your own clever way you can say certainly not a coincidence and meant to convey something

3) You don’t say you were blackmailed!

“Got it,” Ambinder replied. And sure enough, in the journalist’s finished piece, all three of Clinton’s demands were met in the first paragraph. Fellow Beltway scribbler Mike Allen of Politico also used the adjective “muscular” to describe Clinton’s speech, implying that he too followed directions from Clinton’s spin machine.

The two journalists violated a key tenet of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics12: To act independently because “the highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism is to serve the public.” People may debate whether or not Clinton generally receives favorable media coverage, but it seems evident that some reporters are content to become Clinton’s presstitutes. And then they wonder why nobody trusts the Leftmedia.

Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read Clinton’s Democrats and Sanders' Socialists4, on how the “New” Democrats are all Socialists — but at least Sanders has the integrity to admit it.

If you’d like to receive Alexander’s Column by email, update your subscription here13.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Identity Politics and Demo Damnation14

By Allyne Caan

For millennia, humankind has searched for the secret to salvation. At long last, the mystery is revealed — for women, at least. To escape hellfire and brimstone, one must simply vote for Hillary Clinton.

Welcome to the gospel according to former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who recently implied of female Bernie Sanders supporters, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”

This is truly ironic. Whereas once women battled discrimination due to lack of certain equipage in the nether regions, today’s feminists demand preference on grounds of the same absence. Whereas once women fought to be judged by their minds and not their bodies, today’s “progressives” demand females reject the matter between their ears and vote according to what’s between their legs. Whereas once women sought to show the world they could think for themselves, today’s leftists require blind adherence to their ideology.

Talk about a “war on women.”

Make no mistake, for anyone not deemed an heir to “white male privilege,” anything less than absolute submission to the leftist cause is unacceptable.

But it’s not just Democrat women who are expected to kowtow to the party as a condition of their existence (or of their eternal souls). Leftists have elevated identity politics to a religion.

Consider, for example, the recent story by University of Southern California Professor Roberto Suro. Reporting on Ted Cruz’s and Marco Rubio’s respective showings at the Iowa Caucuses, Suro explained15 why their achievements were not recognized as historic Latino wins. “The answer is not that complicated: Neither Mr. Cruz nor Mr. Rubio meets conventional expectations of how Latino politicians are supposed to behave.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 2-11-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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How is that? For starters, a true Latino would support a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, as this “is central to most organized Latino political interests and … is supported by a great majority of Latino elected officials and Latino voters.” In fact, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos wrote16 in no uncertain terms, “There is no greater disloyalty than the children of immigrants forgetting their own roots. That’s a betrayal.” In other words, authentic Latino identity requires believing illegal immigrants should be granted citizenship.

But it doesn’t end there. Added to gender and ethnicity, race rounds out the identity trio.

Suro notes that Ramos' “betrayal,” is a “criticism that echoes the rhetoric aimed at Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and other successful members of minority groups who are perceived as failing to uphold their own group’s interests.”

Indeed, remember Senator Harry Reid bemoaning the “five white men17” of the Supreme Court who voted in favor of rights of conscience in the Hobby Lobby case? Justice Thomas dared defy leftist ideology and was summarily blanched.

Tim Scott, the first black Republican Senator from South Carolina and the first African-American elected to both the House and Senate, also misses the mark of “blackness.” The NAACP — whose acronym-indicated mission is the “advancement of colored people” — gave18 Scott a failing grade on its legislative scorecard. Forget that Scott has achieved what blacks only dreamed of 150 years ago. For “progressives,” degree of “blackness” is directly correlated to towing the Democratic Socialist Party4 line.

And leftists can hardly stand the existence of Mia Love, the first black female Republican in Congress. Just after Love’s historic win in 2014, the Huffington Post headlined19, “She looks black, but her politics are red.” (As in “red state,” of course, not Democratic Socialist red — which, by the way, is precisely the reason the Leftmedia changed the political colors20 25 years ago.) The story noted that Love — female, black and Mormon — is a member of traditionally “oppressed” groups. Yet her values “do not necessarily represent her interests as a member in any of these oppressed groups.” Clearly, these gatekeepers of what blacks are supposed to think would have us believe Love is denying what’s “expected” of her as a female black Mormon by daring to espouse conservative values.

Bottom line, leftists want you to think for yourself — provided that what tow the party line based on race, class, gender and ethnicity. Dare to think differently, and you have failed your identity test.

And failure, as you know, will send you straight to hell.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: A Bipartisan Betrayal of American IT Workers21
Trump: I Can Buy the White House!22
The Other Black History23
Manslaughter Charges Forthcoming in Flint, Michigan?24

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Mona Charen: Day of the Demagogues25
Veronique de Rugy: Obama’s Oil Tax Puts Americans Over a Barrel26
George Will: Break the Teeth-Whitening Monopoly27

For more, visit Right Opinion28.

TOP HEADLINES

Top Clinton Aides Handled Secret Intel29
Obama: ‘I Still Believe in a Politics of Hope’30
Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy Arrested31

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report32

OPINION IN BRIEF

Mona Charen: “Like Sanders, [Donald Trump is] not interested in reform so much as looking for scapegoats. Sanders blames greedy billionaires for the problems of the middle class and the poor; Trump blames treacherous immigrants, crafty foreigners and incompetent leadership in Washington. Some people seemed surprised that there was overlap between Sanders and Trump supporters, but it makes perfect sense. Some commentators on the right, particularly on talk radio, have ridden the hobbyhorse of immigration very hard — even to the point of welcoming Trump’s rise as a ratification of their fixation. But in Iowa, immigration was rated important by only 13 percent of GOP caucus participants. In New Hampshire, only 15 percent said it was important to their vote. Terrorism, government spending and the economy all ranked higher. Trump and Sanders are disruptive, and people who welcome chaos for its own sake are dangerous. The Founding Fathers of this country were extremely wary of excessive power — whether in an executive or in a mob. They designed the system to be stable and somewhat resistant to every shift in public mood, and it has served us very well. But the voters are the ultimate custodians of the American system, and by turning to demagogues in both parties, they’ve ventured into scary terrain.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that an old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had only one before.” —H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

For the record: “The people of New Hampshire have a quaint self-delusion that they pick Presidents. In fact, they like to denigrate Iowa specifically by saying ‘Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks Presidents.’ The actual truth is that New Hampshire has been on an unrelenting losing streak that goes back over three decades, for both parties. In every contested primary — Republican or Democrat — since 1992, New Hampshire has picked a candidate who either a) lost their party’s nomination or b) lost the general election.” —Leon Wolf

Belly laugh of the week: “I just saw a story the other day showing that if you rank all 50 states across categories like education levels and household incomes, and race and religion, the one state that most closely mirrors America as a whole is Illinois, this state.” —Barack Obama

Delusions: “We saved the economy from a depression. We brought back an auto industry from the brink of collapse. We helped our businesses create 14 million new jobs over the past six years. We cut the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.9%. We covered nearly 18 million more Americans with health insurance. We ignited a clean energy revolution. We got bin Laden. We brought the vast majority of our troops home to their families. We got a lot done. We’re still getting a lot done. And our political system helped make these things possible, and the list could go on. There’s no doubt America is better off today than when I took office.” —Barack Obama

“We don’t have a common basis for what’s true and what’s not. I mean, if I listened to some of these conservative pundits, I wouldn’t vote for me either. I sound like a scary guy. … Nine years to the day that I first announced for this office, I still believe in that politics of hope.” —Barack Obama

Transparency: “I don’t think there is any doubt that [Obama] wants Hillary to win the nomination and believes she would be the best candidate in the fall and the most effective as president in carrying forward what he has achieved.” —former Obama spokesman Jay Carney

Non Compos Mentis: “We haven’t seen a true leftist since FDR, so many millions are coming out of the woodwork to vote for Bernie Sanders.” —Bill Maher

Late-night humor: “Valentine’s Day is the only holiday where a plant suddenly becomes astronomically expensive and we’re OK with it. It would be like if on Easter they charged $20 an egg.” —Jimmy Kimmel

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.